


future starts slow

by ohmygodwhy



Series: first rule of earth kingdom fight club... [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Canon-Typical Near Death Experiences, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Pre-Season/Series 01, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, as close to domestic as u can get w/ zuko on a ship in exile i guess, this is very.....slice of lifey?, zhao? a bitch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:13:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22010065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: The point is, the deck is all icy and it’s not his fault—he’s trying to actually keep some semblance of a training regimen up out here even if the rest of the crew is hibernating for the winter. He hasn’t even really started yet, taking a few moments to breathe some warmth into his hands, get his fingers working a little better.Uncle has always complained about him standing too close to the edge.(three looks into life during exile)
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Series: first rule of earth kingdom fight club... [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1280843
Comments: 64
Kudos: 2281





	future starts slow

**Author's Note:**

> me during the semester: ugh im gonna write SO much during the break  
> me during the break: does everything Except write until i get a burst of inspiration at 2am
> 
> anyway! this fits into the fight club au bc i say so. the google doc is titled 'chillin in exile' and i almost made that the title of the fic too

i.

There’s always a moment, right before you get hit, where you have to brace for impact. Sometimes, those are the longest moments, because you can see the hit coming and you know you can’t do anything to stop it; you have to let it hit, and hope you can shake it off afterwards. Zuko learns this from his father, and from the Avatar, and from the earthbenders in the ring with him. 

Before he learns it from the latter two, though he learns it from the ocean.

In his defense, the deck gets icy in the winter when they’re this far North, and the fucker whose job it is to scrape it all up has been slacking - everyone’s been slacking, because it’s fucking cold and nobody likes to get up and do shit in the cold. Limbs take longer to move, fingers are clumsy with chill. Everything moves slower, even Zuko. 

“Not even your hot temper can warm the ship up when winter hits,” Uncle had said to him once. That hadn’t stopped Zuko from trying. 

Candles in all four corners of his room, the fireplace in the kitchen and control room, the ever-fucking-failing engine running as hot as it can, even if it’s seconds away from giving out every other week, and the cold still settles into the metal of the ship to stick around till they float out of this god awful part of the world. He can’t believe he used to think Fire Nation winters were cold when there had been this hell out there this whole time.

The point is, the deck is all icy and it’s not his fault—he’s trying to actually keep some semblance of a training regimen up out here even if the rest of the crew is hibernating for the winter. He hasn’t even really started yet, taking a few moments to breathe some warmth into his hands, get his fingers working a little better.

Uncle has always complained about him standing too close to the edge.

The deck is icy, and they didn’t have enough money for snow shoes this year, their first and unexpectedly long winter; the soles of his boots are not made for the ice. 

He slips. He fucking slips.

There’s that moment, when he’s suddenly fucking plummeting down into the water, where he has to brace for impact. He sees the ocean coming, feels the chill of the air around him and hears his uncle’s startled cry and can’t do anything about it.

He closes his eyes, sucks in a deep breath, and hits the water.

Fuck, it’s cold. It’s freezing; the air on deck seems like summertime on Ember Island compared to this. He can’t help it: he gasps. All the air he sucked in comes rushing out, and he coughs on the salty, icy water that replaces is. Spirits, it’s cold. It’s fucking _cold_. 

Blindly, he kicks out—thank the spirits that his mother taught he and Azula to swim one summer, afraid he would get swept away in the current while the two of them played in the water. Thank the spirits twice over that he isn’t wearing his armor today; there’s too much metal for the cold weather, creaks and makes it hard to move in it at all, so most of the time he foregoes it.

Zuko gasps for air when he breaks the surface, treading water with his stiff limbs. They don’t move very well; his body feels heavy enough without his armor, and, for once, it scares him. He can feel himself shivering already, the chill of the water seeping into his bones, and it scares him. 

He tries to push the feeling down; panicking won’t do him any good right now. 

“Zuko,” he hears someone call—his uncle, he thinks vaguely, and it’s suddenly getting very hard to think. 

His mouth dips below the surface, and he accidentally swallows more water. Chokes on it, and then yells, “I’m here,” as loud as he can.

It’s mostly quiet, out here, no storm and no strong current; his voice must carry, because he hears Uncle say his name again, relief and panic in equal measures. Zuko wonders, in the moments before his body stops fucking listening to him and he slips under the water, what Uncle sounds so worried for—he’s fine, he thinks, he’s obviously got it all totally covered, and then his thoughts are sucked into the water with the rest of him.

Zuko wakes, briefly, while he’s being laid down somewhere—it’s kind of hard, he notices vaguely, maybe the deck? He’s laid flat on the deck many times by now, slowly relearning how to fight with his current half-blindness and being generally shit at it. He’s still freezing cold, but not as bad as before. 

He feels hands on him, and someone comes into focus.

“Zuko,” Uncle is saying, over and over, “Oh, Zuko, my nephew, thank the spirits, I thought you were—” and some more stuff Zuko doesn’t really hear, warm hands on his face and smoothing down his hair. That’s nice, he thinks, before he falls back asleep, everything’s so fucking cold, and his Uncle still manages to keep his hands warm. 

Zuko wakes for the second time in his room. For a moment or two, he thinks it’s his room back home—back in the palace. His room back home is much bigger and warmer than his quarters on his ship, more comfortable, more familiar, and for a moment he thinks he’s back there. He’s in his room in his bed and he has just woken up from a bad dream where he drowned in the middle of the cold fucking ocean, and he’s going to get up and find his mother and tell her about it, because he is still young enough that he can do those things without feeling ashamed about it. And his mother will let him climb under her blankets, or maybe come back to his room with him, and she will hold him and talk to him until he can fall back asleep.

Then, he blinks. Blearily takes in his surroundings, and remembers that this is actually his fucking life. He is in his shit quarters on his shit boat in the middle of the cold fucking ocean, and his mother is long gone and so is his old bedroom. He immediately wishes he was still asleep. But now that he’s awake, he’s awake. 

And shivering. Violently. 

He gasps, maybe too loud, because then his uncle is there, looking old and tired and terrified. Zuko has never seen his uncle look this scared before, and it scares him further into consciousness. 

“Zuko,” Uncle says, voice wavering dangerously. The last time Uncle cried in front of him was back after The Agni Kai, Zuko drifting in and out of consciousness to the feeling of his uncle’s hands clutching at his and half of his face stinging like it was still on fire. He hopes Uncle isn’t going to cry again; he never knows what to do when Uncle cries.

He swallows, unsure of what to say. What exactly does one say after they slipped on an icy deck and almost drowned in freezing water? Sorry for almost dying?

He settles on, “What happened?” because the last thing he was aware of was sinking.

Uncle takes a deep breath, long and brittle, like his lungs are rattling. “You fell.”

Zuko resists the urge to scoff. He doesn’t exactly have the high ground right now. “Yeah, I—I know that. I just mean…” he trails off, feeling oddly sheepish under his uncle’s eyes.

“How did you get here?” Uncle fills in for him.

Zuko nods.

“Lieutenant Jee went in after you—quite brave of him. He found you and we lowered a rope. We very nearly lost both of you.”

Zuko sucks in a breath. His first thought is: how fucking embarrassing. His second thought is: shit, now I have to thank the lieutenant later, which will be painful for both of us.

When he is silent for too long, searching for his words, Uncle sighs again. He puts a hand on Zuko’s shivering one, pulls his blanket up a bit more.

“That was very dangerous.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Zuko finally manages, “I didn’t realize how icy the deck was.”

“You always stand too close to the edge.” There’s a strain in Uncle’s voice that might mean he’s mad and upset and disappointed—always disappointed. It makes Zuko’s heart race.

“I know,” he says, “I know, I’m sorry, I should’ve listened. It won’t happen again.”

“I should hope not.”

Zuko swallows, hard. He’s always so bad at making things right. Mother and Father did both teach him to apologize—very different teaching methods, obviously. He’s never sure which one stuck better. Still, he glues his eyes to the bottom of his bed, and twists his free fingers into the blanket.

“Sorry for… messing up so much. And not listening. And ruining the lesson.”

Uncle sucks in a quick breath. “Zuko. I’m not mad about that—I’m not mad at all. I’m just glad you’re okay. You gave me quite a scare.”

“Sorry,” he says again, and when he looks up, Uncle’s eyes are alarmingly wet. “Why are you crying?”

Uncle just looks at him bewildered, as if he doesn’t understand the question. “You gave me quite a scare,” he says again, “You went down so fast, and so far, and you were down there for far too long. I was afraid you might…”

Afraid you might die. Afraid you might be dead when we found you. As if he would let the ocean kill him. The idea would almost offend him, if Uncle wasn’t crying.

“I wouldn’t let the ocean kill me,” he says, utterly confident. Uncle, inexplicably, laughs. The sound is wet and weak, but it’s a laugh. 

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Really,” Zuko insists, because he knows Uncle isn’t taking him seriously, “I would’ve been okay. You don’t have to worry.”

“Zuko,” Uncle’s voice has somehow softened even more than it already was, “Of course I worry. You’re very dear to me.”

Zuko doesn’t really know what to say to that. He can’t tell if he’s uncomfortable or not. If it makes him feel glad, or not, to know that Uncle cares for him—obviously he knows that Uncle cares on some level, staying out here with him, but he’s always assumed it was a care built on some residual sense of guilt. He knows that’s why he came with him to begin with. Maybe knowing in theory and knowing for sure are a bit different.

The silence carries for a moment, for two, and then Uncle lets out a deep breath. He smooths Zuko hair back again, leaves it for a moment, and says, “I’ll make us some tea; it will do good to warm you up. Spirits, you gave me such a scare.” 

Uncle insists they take a break from lessons for a few days, which turns into a week, which almost turns into two until Zuko insists that he does actually need to keep attempting to learn. Zuko also catches a few crew members watching him a bit too closely for his liking when he’s on deck, like they’re making sure the stupid kid doesn’t slip off the edge again. He resists the urge to flip them off, because he isn’t a child anymore, and instead asks them if they have anything to say to him. They quickly look away and say no, of course not, and Zuko leaves it at that.

(Once, the mechanic who is actually kind of a shit mechanic but also taught Zuko how to pickpocket and pick a lock with a screwdriver, gets bold and tells him: careful, your highness, I’m the only one out here right now and I ain’t a very good swimmer.

Zuko, fed up at this point, tells him to fuck off and go do his job, whatever the fuck his job is. The mechanic laughs, and fucks off to do his job. Whatever the fuck it is. The only reason the guy is here, stuck with the banished prince in the middle of nowhere, is because he got caught sleeping with his general’s wife, so who knows.)

He does, unfortunately, have to track down the lieutenant and thank him for, you know, saving his life and all that. It is, as he predicted, kind of painful for both of them, but Zuko genuinely is grateful, and Jee genuinely says it was his duty to go in after him, as he is their captain and their prince. Zuko genuinely does not know what to do with those words, so he tucks them away and decides to deal with them later. (He never does deal with them later.) 

Ultimately, his trip to the near bottom of the ocean does not kill him and, shockingly, does not get him life-threateningly ill (he is in bed for a few days with a cold, but that’s about it) or fuck up his scar worse, either. The main thing it does is deeply, deeply embarrass him for a week or so and make his uncle not let Zuko out of his sight for the next long while, until he’s confident Zuko won’t walk right off the edge again.

By the time their second winter hits, they’ve bought better winter boots and have taken to scraping the ice off the deck every morning. Zuko suspects that was his uncle’s doing more than anything, because the men actually listen to uncle more often than not, but that’s fine with him, because frankly, fuck the winter and fuck the ocean, too.

ii.

Once, when Zuko is annoyingly sick, Zhao decides to make an unannounced pitstop. 

Zuko’s in the middle of trying to make it through some obscure scroll about Avatar Yangchen, chalk full of a bunch of vague air nomad spiritual terms, when someone knocks on his door and announces that Zhao’s ship has been spotted and he’s requesting to dock. 

_Demanding_ is probably a better word for it, as usual. Zhao does not ask for things, he demands them. Zuko lets the scroll roll shut with a snap and pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel the headache that Zhao’s presence usually invokes coming on already.

He wonders, for a few moments, if he should put his armor on—it’s custom, when welcoming other navy members aboard your vessel, and then he decides that he doesn’t actually care. Zhao is the one who showed up unannounced, and Zuko is the one who’s sick. 

He laces up his boots, laces up his hair, pulls on a long robe and slams his door shut on his way out. Uncle raises his eyebrows at his lack of armor, but Uncle is also only wearing his robes, so he has no room to talk.

“Prince Zuko,” Zhao says when he boards, bowing much lower than he needs to, all condescension and fake reverence. Then, right on cue, “Have you outgrown your armor in the years you’ve been away?”

“One year, so far,” Zuko reminds him, “And why would I get dressed for you?”

Zhao raises an eyebrow at that, as if he is a shining example of propriety and cannot believe what has been said to him, as if he didn’t say “your scar looks even worse than it was the day you got it” the last time he was here. Fucking asshole. 

“Has your time away from home—I’m sorry, your one year away from home—done away with all your manners?”

Zuko scoffs, crossing his arms. “You love reminding me that I’m 'away from home'. We’re not in court; why should I act like we are? You certainly don’t ever care about propriety when you insult me.”

Zhao fucking gasps, the bastard. “I would never insult my prince—even though you are _banished_ ,” he puts full emphasis on the word, like Zuko somehow forgot and needs to be reminded, “you are still our crown prince.”

“And as your crown prince, I believe that I outrank you. So again, why should I do something for you that I do not wish to do?” 

The asshole actually scowls, this time—Zuko is usually the one getting riled up (he is aware of his temper, but being aware of it and successfully controlling it are two different things), but today he’s just too damn tired. Zhao always says the same old shit in different forms, and Zuko is just tired of it, and of him. For the first time in a while, he truly wonders why this grown ass man likes arguing with him so much—over two times his age and he still acts like a child on a power trip. Spirits, he fucking hates Zhao. 

Zhao opens his mouth, probably to spit out yet another thinly veiled insult, when Uncle graciously cuts in.

“Prince Zuko has been a bit ill, lately,” he says, voice smooth and calming as ever, “Armor is such a hassle when you’re sick — you understand, of course.”

Zhao presses his mouth into a thin line, “Of course,” he agrees stiffly. “I apologize for any disrespect—unintentional, of course.”

“Of course,” Uncle agrees serenely. Zuko sighs, deeply. 

“Do you have anything you need from me, or will you be on your way?”

If Zhao wants to stand by Rules Of Propriety at sea, then he can die by them, too. His prince is ill, and has, on all accounts, dismissed him. To deny his request and stay past his welcome would be disrespectful — and the asshole just apologized for (and acknowledged, however vaguely) his disrespect. Pai and fucking Sho. If Zuko wasn’t so tired he would be more proud of himself.

“No,” he says, recovering from his annoyance with annoying ease, “I simply wanted to see how my prince was faring. No one has seen you in quite some time.”

Zuko resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Obviously."

“Any news on the Avatar?” This is Zhao’s favorite topic to poke at; he seems to think it’s the most amusing thing he’s ever heard, the idea of looking for the Avatar. (You’ll never find him, he told him once, smug and certain, you can search for the rest of your life, but you will never find him. Zuko had looked him in the eye and said bet on that.)

“Nothing that concerns you.” Which of course means _no_ , and they both know it, but Zuko isn’t about to admit that.

Zhao still smirks, despite his non-answer. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

No you’re not, Zuko doesn’t say, but definitely thinks loud enough for Zhao to hear. 

“I’m sure you are,” he says instead. “Anything else?”

“No,” Zhao says, seemingly pleased to have finally gotten his traditional Avatar Barb in. “I think I’ll be on my way. I’m a very busy man.”

Zuko does roll his eyes this time, uncaring and suddenly exhausted. He finds that this conversation actually has him missing that spirits-awful air nomad scroll. 

“I wish you a quick recovery, Prince Zuko,” Zhao says, in that voice that very clearly implies that he does not. 

“And we wish you a safe journey,” Uncle says, when it becomes clear that Zuko isn’t going to return the sentiment, “Wherever that may be.”

Zhao smiles that fake little smile, and bows. Zuko, grudgingly, bows back. And then, finally, Zhao is gone. 

Zuko sighs, feeling all the tension he had unknowingly built up flooding from his shoulders. “Spirits,” he says, “That was annoying.”

“Captain Zhao is quite a man,” Uncle says, in that vague way that could be taken negatively or positively, the closest Uncle will get to shit talking. Zuko will take it. “A bit of rough timing. Now, let us get you back to bed, Prince Zuko. You’re nearly better, but not quite.”

The headache Zuko knew was coming is pounding behind his forehead so, for once, he doesn’t argue.

iii.

Next winter, the weeks are long and the days are longer, even if the time the sun spends in the sky is cut short. They have boots made for winter and so he does not fall again. They were in the earth kingdom for the better part of the summer, well into late fall, and now they are somewhere further south, and so winter feels like winter again. 

Three weeks into their trip south, and Zuko wakes up all at once. He blinks; the room comes halfway into focus, grudgingly, his good eye buried in the pillow and his bad eye taking in the burnt out candles and empty space. He thinks he was dreaming — fire and the horrible feeling of everyone looking at you, fear and sweat and heat — but it’s fading under the sound of the ship rocking back and forth. When he closes his eyes, he still sees the figure standing over him through the fire, so he opens them again. 

He’s not up on the stage, and he’s not in the infirmary; he’s on his ship, and it’s the morning, and it was just a dream. He needs to get over himself. He turns onto his back to stare up at the ceiling, and he thinks that he’s very tired. He also thinks that he won’t be able to fall back asleep if he tried. And it’s morning anyways, sunlight peeking through the single window. Might as well start the day. 

He dresses slowly, ties his hair up slowly, laces his boots up slowly. Cold fingers are slow fingers, and he is not in a particular rush today. The cold subdues him sometimes, his uncle likes to joke, and even his fiery spirit cannot always withstand the ice. 

The crew moves slowly, the ship moves slowly, and Zuko forgoes breakfast for a slow check up below deck. His ship might be a bit of a shit hole, but it’s still his ship, and he needs it to be in good shape. Or at least, in as good of a shape as it can be. 

He finds Arai, their Actually Competent Mechanic, struggling with a pipe in the engine room. When Zuko asks him what’s wrong with it, the mechanic tells him that the ship is not meant for the cold—which everyone knows—and that the temperature must be even colder this year, because the ice has frozen through and clogged up the pipe that carries the water to the showers. He also cannot seem to hold the wrench up for more than twenty seconds to save his life, and Zuko sees that his hand is hastily wrapped.

“What happened?” He asks, mainly out of surprise.

Arai glances down at his hand, and shrugs. “Busted it up yesterday getting the engine running again. It’s my good hand, so I haven’t gotten much work done.”

Zuko considers for a moment. He’s trying to be a good commander, a good leader. That means looking after the people that he’s leading.

“Stop working, then.”

“Pardon?”

“Stop working. I’d rather you let your hand heal and be able to work afterwards than you continue now and fuck it up permanently.”

Arai blinks, like the idea hadn’t occurred to him. “Oh. Of course.”

“How much time do you need?”

“Five days?” 

Zuko considers. “You have four.” 

“Yes, sir,” the mechanic salutes, giving him a small smile. Zuko doesn’t know if he’s ever smiled at him before, even back when Zuko asked him to teach him how to do his job, and it startles him. For a moment, he doesn’t feel like a prince so much as a member of the crew. 

“Four days,” he reminds him, and Arai nods and bows. The mechanic is halfway down the hallway before Zuko remembers to ask him where the rest of his tools are. The guy looks surprised for a moment, and tells him that they’re in the engine room. 

The only competent mechanic is out for the next few days, and their other mechanic is not very competent. The lieutenant might know what to do, but he’s probably busy. Zuko doesn’t have much else to do today, so he might as well just fucking do it himself. 

He goes and gets the toolbox from the engine room, relieved to see that the engine and heater are both still working as well as they can be, and strips off his top layer. It’s a bit colder, but he can’t work in that shit. He’s close to the engine room, anyways, below deck and away from the chill of the open air. 

He looks at the pipe—doable, hopefully nothing he’ll fuck up further—sifts through the toolbox, and settles in to get to work. 

It takes the better part of the day, but it’s good work. Calming, once you get into it. He can’t imagine doing anything like this back home—too low, his father would say, commoners’ work, physical labor. Maybe it isn’t proper, but nothing about this stupid ship is proper, and his father is hours and hours away. 

Plus, some childish part of him thinks, this is something Azula would never know how to do. He imagines her shooting lightning at the busted up pipe—can’t imagine her ever holding a wrench without maiming someone with it—and almost laughs. He doesn’t, because he’s been at sea for the better part of two years and he’s the crown prince of his nation and he’s fixing a pipe on his tiny shitty ship, but he almost does. Finds himself smiling, just a little bit. 

He finishes fixing the damn thing in time to put the tools back, drop his top layer off in his room and show up for the usual dinner with his uncle.

“Prince Zuko,” Uncle says, sounding overly pleased to see him, “I haven’t laid eyes on you all day.”

“I haven’t seen you either,” he points out, sitting at the table and crossing his legs. 

“What have you been up to, my dear nephew?”

Zuko shrugs, suddenly oddly self conscious, “Arai injured his hand yesterday, so I gave him the next four days off.”

Uncle smiles, and nods—approving, that pathetic, desperate part of Zuko notices, “That’s very kind of you.”

Again, Zuko shrugs, wrapping his noodles around his chopsticks. “He was trying to fix the pipe to the showers—it was frozen through.”

Uncle looks vaguely concerned at this, but probably not as much as he should, “Did you assign someone else to fix it?”

“No,” Zuko shakes his head, “I just decided to do it myself. That’s where I was all day.”

Uncle raises his eyebrows, vaguely surprised. “Did you finish?” He asks, and Zuko can tell he's a hair breath away from asking if he actually _fixed_ it or not. He would be more offended if he hadn’t, you know, fallen off the ship and almost drowned last winter. 

“Yeah. Arai taught me how to do some of that stuff.”

“When was this?”

Zuko shrugs yet again, “A while ago, I guess. Back when my eye was still healing. I was tired of sitting around, so I asked him to show me how to do what he did.”

Uncle hums thoughtfully; Zuko didn’t know this was news to him—and then considers some of the other things he has asked the crew to teach him, and remembers why he hasn’t made a habit of telling his uncle everything he does. 

“That’s very resourceful of you, Prince Zuko. It’s wise to have experience in many fields.”

Zuko lets out a deep breath at his uncle’s approval. He hadn’t really realized how uncertain he was about it—he knows his father would disapprove. 

“Thank you,” he says, ignoring the odd ache in his chest at the thought—that his uncle approves of him doing things his father would punish him for; that he thinks it’s wise and resourceful.

“Of course,” Uncle smiles fondly. “Would you like to hear about the Pai Sho tournament me and Lieutenant Jee had this afternoon?”

Zuko doesn’t really want to hear about it all that much, because he’s honestly pretty shit at Pai Sho and doesn’t get the appeal, but he nods anyways, because it makes his uncle happy and it makes the cold ship feel a little bit warmer. 

The weeks are long and the days are longer; today went faster than usual, even if it was long and tedious work. He realizes, absently, that he hadn’t much thought about how far they still are from finding the Avatar all day, much more consumed in twisting screws and thawing ice. 

Everyone needs a day or two off, he tells himself, listening to his uncle talk and sipping absently at his tea. He’ll get back to it tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> comment to bring me good luck and prosperity in 2020 i already dont wanna go back to school lol


End file.
